


Bottled Lightning

by gelishan



Category: Daredevil (Comics), Daredevil (TV)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Drinking Games, Human Disaster Matt Murdock, Idiots in Love, M/M, Spin the Bottle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-21
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-17 12:55:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29593131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gelishan/pseuds/gelishan
Summary: “Give them a break.  Watching straight boys awkward kiss is no fun, and they’re roommates.  They have tolivewith the awkward.”Five times Matt played Spin the Bottle, and one time Foggy wouldn’t let him.
Relationships: Matt Murdock/Franklin "Foggy" Nelson
Comments: 16
Kudos: 60
Collections: MattFoggy Server Telephone Game Event





	Bottled Lightning

**Author's Note:**

> Apparently, gonna keep alternating between Carefully Considered Work With Themes And Metaphors and tropey nonsense
> 
> I hope you enjoy this tropey nonsense, and also, how everyone in the show and the comics inexplicably went to school together

**1.**

The first time it happened really was a fluke.

“You need to take a break sometime, Murdock,” Foggy had said. “Live a little,” and with that much warning he’d been dragged from his cozy essay-writing session to this din and debauchery. Everyone smelled like alcohol, sweat, and too many late nights of anxiety studying. Foggy, of course, was having a great time. Everyone loved Foggy, and Foggy loved everyone. Matt just wanted to go home.

When the room settled down to a game of Spin the Bottle, it was a relief. No more loud music or shouted conversations. Just the crystalline friction of the bottle twirling on the carpet. Then it came time for Foggy to spin. 

As the ringing glass came to a stop, one of his friends elbowed him, and there were a few scattered chuckles. Foggy’s facial musculature adjusted— Matt couldn’t identify the expression, he never could, but he knew it was _comprehensive_ — and Foggy’s breath came short.

“Uh, Matt, buddy,” he said, heart… not racing, exactly, but at least speeding on the freeway. “You’re up. It landed on you.”

Huh.

He didn’t _hate_ the concept. He’d never kissed a man before, never even really considered the idea, but now that he had to, Foggy would be an excellent choice to experiment with. He was attracted to Matt— he’d made that very clear the first day they’d met. His hair, when it brushed against Matt’s hand in passing, was soft, would be nice to run his hands through. His smells weren’t always pleasant, particularly not during finals week, but Matt had gotten used to all of them, they were comfortable and familiar now, enough that he could immerse himself in them, lick into Foggy’s mouth, without being bothered by them at all.

And if this went well, it might make their movie watching nights more fun. Not having to ignore his urge to slide closer to Foggy, being able to put an arm around his shoulder, smile at him and enjoy the increased speed of his heartbeat instead of feeling guilty about it, lean over and graze his hand along Foggy’s face and feel the skin warming under his.

...Possibly he was wrong about never having considered the idea.

“Dude, could you possibly be any straighter?” someone piped up. “Get over your crisis and kiss him already so we can move on.”

“Give them a break,” said a girl Matt vaguely knew. A fellow law student? She sounded far too young for that. “Watching straight boys awkward kiss is no fun, and they’re _roommates_ . They have to _live_ with the awkward.”

Matt was halfway through opening his mouth to protest when Foggy shrugged. “Much as I’m equal opportunity, if you’re gonna let me pick…” he grinned. “Not gonna waste the opportunity. Marci Stahl, get over here.”

After a moment, Matt shrugged too. Not that anyone was paying attention to him anymore, but it was the _principle_ of the thing.

Feet clicked across the room, barely deadened by the carpet. Then there were slippery, enthusiastic sounds, a few squeaks, and a breathy gasp that was _not_ appropriate for a lounge full of… of susceptible college students. They could at least have waited until they’d made it back to a dorm room. That way Matt wouldn’t have had to regret every single noise Foggy was drawing out of Marci.

“Well,” she said, sounding breathless and impressed. “ _Well_ . How long did it take you to refine _that_ technique?”

“Oh,” he said, grin not at all hidden in his voice, “not long. I’ve had some great teachers, is all.”

“Thank them for me,” she said, and now her voice was less breathless than it was throaty. “Or better yet, come by my place later and let me thank them with my tongue.”

_“Marci_ ,” one of her friends said, in the admiringly, smugly scandalized tone of someone who’d be feeding this to the gossip mills all week. Matt wished he could echo the name, but drown it in disapproval instead.

“Oh, like you weren’t thinking it,” she retorted. “You’ve got eyes, and if that kiss looked a tenth as good as it _was_ , you wanted in.” Matt didn’t need working eyes to want in. “I just wanted to book an appointment before any of you could get in line.”

“Well, I am taking new clients,” Foggy said playfully. “Schedule’s wide open tonight.”

“I’ll be there,” she said— no, purred.

Matt kind of hated Marci Stahl. 

* * *

**2.**

The second time was calculated.

When it was his turn to spin, he tapped on the bottle surreptitiously, focused all his attention on it and on the sound of Foggy’s heartbeat. It was about 4 millimeters thick, slightly unbalanced, which meant that if he spun it just so...

“What?” he laughed after the room went silent. “Who did it land on?”

“Foggy again,” the girl who told him he was straight last time said sympathetically. “Dude, you have the worst luck.”

“It’s not bad luck to land on Foggy,” he said sharply. “Foggy is a… a stand-up guy, and everyone should be lucky enough to get a chance to kiss him." Foggy’s heart rate was elevated, and there was sweat beading on his neck that Matt wished he could identify the reason for, and maybe had specific daydreams about licking off his skin.

“I’ll say,” muttered Marci Stahl. He kind of hated Marci Stahl.

“Nah, man,” the evaluatrix of straight said, tail waving. “This game is supposed to be fun!” She shuffled sideways, elbowing people out of the way until she stood directly between him and Foggy, and added, “Why don’t you just pick one of the girls closest to him and kiss them instead?” He was willing to bet she was batting her eyelashes at him.

If he insisted now, it would be obvious he had a kissing agenda, and a particular someone at the top of it. But he wasn’t going to reward her for sabotaging his plans twice now.

He smiled with every last one of his teeth. “Fine.” They clenched over the word. “But, ah,” he gestured at his glasses, “I’m afraid I don’t know where everyone’s sitting, so… Karen?”

Karen’s lips were soft, but she was surprisingly avid with her kisses, sucking on his tongue like she’d practiced it countless times, so many she didn’t need to _mean_ it to do it well. But it felt like she meant it, too, if the heat spreading through her body and the changes in her sweat composition were any indication. And they were, he’d spent years training to recognize those signals. His heart panged with guilt. 

Karen was lovely, and under other circumstances, he might consider it. Might cup her delicate chin in his hand, feel her smile through her jaw, and lean in. Brush their lips together, soft and teasing, twine his hands into her thick, golden hair, and sigh into her ear, “oh, _Foggy._ ”

Karen broke the kiss. “ _What_?” she said disbelievingly.

“Ah. Funny!” he said. “That we got paired up like this. I appreciate you being a good sport about it.”

She put her hand on her hip. “Matt, you’re gonna be a lawyer. Your actual paid job will be professional bullshitting. How are you so terrible at it?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said with a mild, nervous smile. “This has been lovely and I appreciate having had a chance to get to know you. Intimately.” With that, he left the center of the Spin The Bottle circle and walked briskly from the room. Possibly jogged. _Definitely_ didn’t flee.

* * *

**3.**

“Are you freaking kidding me?”

This was a punishment. God was punishing him for his anger, for his covetousness. There was absolutely no other explanation for this.

“How does this dude always cause drama?” someone in the audience whispered, and he clenched his teeth. It was _Marci_ causing the drama here, not him.

She stood there, stance wide, both hands on her hips. “Fine,” she said reluctantly. “Give it your best shot, Murdock.”

Sin or not, he still kind of hated Marci Stahl. But she was an excellent kisser— she was clever about it, never giving you a chance to anticipate exactly what she’d do next, darting wet along his lips, into the corner of his mouth, biting his lip harder than was strictly necessary, until he was gasping into it.

But Foggy was watching, heart beating fast as a Eurodance track, so he gave it his all. All the techniques he’d learned, Foggy wasn’t the only one who made people want to thank him with their tongue, and he was going to make sure Foggy was _viscerally aware of that_ . Enough that it haunted his dreams and his waking hours, enough that he couldn’t be in a room with Matt without thinking about it, imagining the softness of Matt’s lips against his, the skillful scrape of his teeth, fantasizing about how much he wanted to crush their entire bodies together, bury his hands in Foggy’s soft, silky hair and _pull_.

God _dammit_.

At least a lot of what he was thinking got channeled into the kiss. Marci seemed inappropriately mussed, her breathing was a little heavy, and from what he could tell, the light hair pulling hadn’t been a bad idea.

“How was that?” he said with a shy smirk, a patented, time-tested, highly effective Matt Murdock flirtation.

“It was… fine,” she said, and her heart picked up at the lie faster than a vacuum picked up cheese puff dust. (Way faster, he’d had to wait until Foggy had a long block of classes, make four passes over the floor, clothespin the snack bag shut, and toss it into the dumpster, which somehow smelled better than those cheese puffs that _human beings were supposed to eat.)_

She was still breathing hard. He let his smirk widen.

“Fine, Murdock, you win this round.” Her posture was annoyed, but this was Marci Stahl— her posture was always annoyed. Her heart rate, however, was still not back to normal. “Maybe I’ll let you be one of his exceptions after all.”

“His what?”

_“Next!”_

He heard the girl who kept ruining his night mutter under her breath, “I kind of hate Marci Stahl.” For the first time, he wasn’t sure if he agreed with the sentiment.

* * *

  
  


**4.**

“Aw, man,” the night-ruiner said, faux disappointment in her voice, “you got paired with a guy again. That sucks for you, dude, but I’m here for—”

“He literally hasn’t even spun the bottle yet, Squirrel Girl! Jeez! Keep your tail in your pants!”

She muttered something along the lines of _it’s not my fault it’s too big to fit_ , and Foggy cheerfully added, “That’s what she said.”

“Seriously, dude? Not really helping with the overall vibe right now.” Matt couldn’t agree more— most of the scenarios he was envisioning with Foggy did _not_ involve tails. Though for Foggy, he could make an exception.

He spun the bottle viciously, and it landed…

“Okay, now she’s seriously not joking about it landing on a dude,” said the same voice, incredulously. “I heard of gaydar, but my man, you must use it to navigate. You’re _only_ getting dudes or queer ladies.”

Huh. He hadn’t known Marci was queer. Maybe she and Karen would get along. “You know what they say. Lose a sense and all your others get enhanced.” A few laughs from the peanut gallery. “Might as well succumb to the inevitable,” he said, and hoped this would be enough to draw Foggy out. “Anyone queer here I haven’t kissed?”

“You don’t _have_ to kiss someone queer,” Squirrel Girl said in what increasingly seemed like desperation. “Seriously, we want you to have fun. If you just want to kiss a girl, I’m willin—” 

“ _Stop that_ ,” he gritted out. “Do you know you haven’t even _asked_ me if I’m straight? None of you have.”

_“Are_ you straight?” said the gaydar-as-navigation voice, curiously.

“Besides the point!” he said, waving his hand frantically, and Foggy’s heart started beating like popcorn: irregular, noisy, and enthusiastic. “Point is, this is a game where you kiss strangers, not a game where you pick and choose. I wouldn’t be playing it if I minded kissing _anyone_ , boys or girls.”

The room volume dropped.

...he might have just come out to the entirety of his 2L class. And everyone else who lived in this dorm.

Foggy's heart wasn’t beating any slower, but it was beating even more like popcorn. Like he might actually catch fire if his face stayed at that temperature, like he might start emitting a beeping noise at any moment.

“Well,” someone interrupted, another someone Matt vaguely knew, a Danny— someone who smelled of wealth and, weirdly, of spiritual energy. “If you don’t mind kissing boys, I think you owe me one from last time.”

Matt shrugged. “Sure,” he said, because if they wouldn’t let him kiss Foggy, he might as well prove that he _meant_ it about the… undiscerning Spin the Bottle taste.

Danny Rand was all sloppy tongue and somehow Matt felt affection for him anyway. He was _enthusiastic_ , which made sense— he volunteered himself to kiss Matt as soon as it seemed like there might be a chance. Matt found himself leaning into it, returning the enthusiasm, making a surprised noise as Danny nipped at his lower lip, turning into a much more embarrassing noise, quickly suppressed, as Foggy sucked his lower lip into his mouth.

_Danny._ _Danny_ sucked it into his— you know, he might as well stop even trying at this point.

Foggy licked a thick, wet line against his skin and his teeth bit into Matt’s neck, hot suction that was going to bruise. Matt whined as he arched into it, he didn’t even care that people were watching anymore—

“Whoa whoa whoa, Danny, keep it PG-13.”

“In public? All right.” He ran his hand along Matt’s face while he tried to stop… breathing so embarrassingly. “No promises about what happens in private.”

There was a wink in his voice. If this were a hotel bar, Matt would’ve expected him to slip him his room key.

_Well_. He huffed out a breath and tried to ignore Foggy’s heartbeat. That was... interesting.

* * *

The door creaked open, and Matt froze.

“Hey, Matt, do you know what happened to my chee- _esus Christ, Matt_ !” Foggy slammed both hands over his eyes like they were the wardrobe to Narnia and he did _not_ want any more Turkish Delight. “This is what socks are for! It is their _reason for existing!_ ”

Danny Rand lounged back unrepentantly, but unrepentant wasn’t really Matt’s style. “Sorry, Foggy,” he said, trying to not pay attention to the guilt and arousal in Foggy’s tone, the things Matt desperately wanted directed towards him on _purpose_.

Well. Maybe not the guilt.

All right, probably the guilt too. At this point, it would only be fair, considering how much affectionate guilt Matt had sunk into their relationship.

“It’s fine, I’m not mad, you two just… finish up… and text me when it’s safe to come back, okay?” There was something wretched and horrible in his voice, and before he could open his mouth to explain, before he was even sure if he should, Foggy wasn’t in the room anymore.

* * *

**5.**

“Heeeeeey, Matt!” Squirrel Girl said, leaning over to punch him in the chest. It was a surprisingly substantial punch. “You’re gonna kiss _me_ this time.”

“How old even are you?” He could hear Foggy’s heartbeat through the crowd, he had to figure out a trajectory where he could get to him without knocking people over or giving them black eyes. But there were so many people crowded in here, it seemed impossible and overwhelming.

“I’m old enough to appreciate you for… for…” She hiccuped. “Old enough.”

Closest he could get to Foggy was across the Spin the Bottle circle from him, at the periphery. When Foggy’s turn came around, he spun it unenthusiastically, barely nudged it, but the floor of this lounge was worn smooth, the bottle slid further than he’d expected it to.

When the bottle pointed towards Matt, Foggy actually _flinched_.

“No thanks,” he said, that same wretched quiet in his voice. He pushed himself to his feet. “I think I’m gonna head out. Have fun, buddy.”

Foggy never, ever left parties before Matt did. With Matt, sometimes, when Matt was having a particularly rough evening, but never before him.

He didn’t know what he’d done, not exactly, but he’d driven Foggy away.

* * *

  
  


**+1**

  
  


He followed Foggy out of the lounge, down the hall, all the way back to their dorm room.

“Foggy,” he said hoarsely once the door had closed, “what did I do? Why did you leave?”

Foggy clenched a fist. “I’m fine, Matt.”

Cortisol was pouring from the surface of his skin, and his heart was beating like he was in pain. “Why are you lying to me?”

“Because not everything’s your responsibility! Because for once I could be having a problem that’s my own goddamn fault.” Under his breath, he mumbled, “I shouldn’t have gotten so fucking invested.”

“Invested in what?”

“Jesus, Matt, are you a _bat_?”

“Answer the question.”

For a moment, he thought Foggy wasn’t going to, but he took in a hitched, hiccuping breath and all the tension in him melted into miserable resignation. “In that stupid game, Matt,” he said, scrubbing at his forehead with a fist. “Fuck. I figured that even if it couldn’t work in real life, I could pretend for a few minutes in that game. But even though the bottle lined us up _three times_ , you went with everyone else. Anyone else. With Karen, with Marci, with,” his voice went nasal with distaste, “Danny.”

Matt gaped.

_Every single person I kissed, I was imagining they were you._ His mouth forms and unforms around the words, and they fall shapeless to the carpet, unspoken. “That… wasn’t really… I didn’t pick Marci! You’re the one who went with Marci!”

“Yeah, because you stood there for ten minutes like I was a zombie horde and you were gonna whack me with a baseball bat if I made a move. I wasn’t gonna force myself on you, dude. I thought it was because you were straight, but then you defiled our bedroom with Danny Rand, of all people.”

“He was interested, Fogs! I didn’t think you were.” 

He’d known Foggy was attracted, of course he did. The signals were clear, unmistakable. But attraction doesn’t mean you want to act on it.

He inhaled. “You really didn’t know?” He touched a hand to the bend of Matt’s waist, startlingly intimate. “Christ, Matt, it’s obvious to _everyone_. When Marci and I were together, she said making out with you wouldn’t count as cheating if, quote, he ever gets his act together and actually makes a move.” Matt really can’t hate Marci Stahl anymore. 

The popcorn heartbeat was back, and Foggy stepped closer. “I’ve been game for kissing you literally since the day we met. So if that’s what you want, just _do it_ already, okay?”

Foggy was offering exactly what Matt had wanted this whole time. Clear, truthful, no strings attached.

In a fit of panic, he said, “We need a bottle.”

“ _Dude_!”

“It was supposed to, supposed to be something low-pressure that we could back out of if we wanted and now it’s going to be a whole _thing_. I never meant to pressure you into anything, Foggy. I just…”

Soft, warm, wet was touching his lips, arms that smelled familiar were wrapped around him, and before he could really think about what he was doing, he was gone, all of him melting against Foggy. It was a gentle kiss, lips pressed softly against him and tongue working his mouth open like it wanted to look inside and see how he worked. But he’d never been kissed more _resolutely_.

“You’re not pressuring me into anything, Matt,” Foggy said once they’d surfaced for air, and his cheek lifted against Matt’s hand. “I really like you. And if you don’t feel the same way, I’m chill with that,” surprisingly, mostly true, “because you’re an awesome dude and I like being friends with you too. But since locking lips doesn’t seem to be a problem for you, I’m getting the impression that what you don’t want to pressure me into is a relationship?”

“Yeah,” he said miserably. “That.”

It felt like Foggy was studying him. “Do you _want_ a relationship?”

“I can’t answer that,” he said in a panic, and Foggy made a sound somewhere between a chuckle and a sigh of relief.

“Good,” he said, “me too. Dibs on next Tuesday for date night, my afternoon classes are off that day and I’d like to have as much free time for this as possible.” He leaned in again, movement a little more confident this time.

This kiss was tongue and teeth and enthusiasm, like Danny, but aggressive. The kind of kiss that makes you feel pinned in place, and like someone’s about to do way more than pin you. And it was _precise_ . Like the blueprint for every swirl of his tongue had been designed by experts in New York, shipped off to factories in California (they had to be North American factories, Matt wasn’t going to have unethically sourced kisses), and manufactured into existence for the sole purpose of making him lose his goddamn mind. None of his daydreams of kissing Foggy had _anything_ on this.

Foggy’s lips curled against his, a smile that wasn’t quite a smirk, and he pulled back from the kiss. “Assuming that sounds good to you,” he said, nuzzling his nose against Matt’s, all sweetness and light.

No, not light— lightning, electric and rare, and somehow, against all odds, Matt had managed to capture him with a bottle.

“Yeah,” he said dazedly. “I think I can make that work.”

**Author's Note:**

> [Squirrel Girl canonically hit on Daredevil, and he was not into it](https://www.reddit.com/r/TwoBestFriendsPlay/comments/cib1id/that_time_squrriel_girl_had_a_thing_for_daredevil/)


End file.
